I am posting a day later than usual. My apologies to regular readers who checked in yesterday. If I had checked my calendar more closely I would have realized that the schedule was overloaded. A morning appointment, an afternoon meeting, an evening that we exercise, and trying to cook earlier so that dinner would be ready for us to head out the door and the whole day was scheduled to the hilt. Not only that, but spring has really begun. It was just two days past the day that my husband first remarked that he had seen significant amounts of pollen on the car. Then I decided that I would take a walk and enjoy the spring flowers in the neighborhood. That was a big mistake. I woke up Thursday morning with a bad case of allergic reaction.I could hardly bring myself to get out of bed, and I had the a busy day ahead of me. So something had to give. That is why I am posting today rather than my normal Thursday post.
I guess it would be worthwhile to tell you how this particular project came about. It was one of those projects that have been in the back of my mind for a long time. Years, decades ago actually, there was a craft project about that caught my interest. I don't know what the actual title of the craft was but it can best be described as lawn sheep. It was a plywood cut in the shape of sheep/lambs that was painted black. Some type of fake fur was glued onto the body of the sheep, leaving only the black face and legs visible. The sheep were staked out on the lawn. From a distance, it looked like a flock of sheep grazing. They were cute. But like all crafts, they eventually fell out of favor after a while. I expect that this craft fell out of favor fairly quickly because the fake fur would not have stayed clean for very long. Anyway, it left an impression enough that it is something I recall from years ago.
Another trigger for this project was a Santa project I saw in a magazine years ago. It was a nearly life-size Santa standing next to a large long haired ram. I don't recall what the Santa looked like other than it was an old-world style Santa. But I remember looking at that ram and saying I would like to make one someday. Last year I came across a copy of that old magazine and instantly recognized the photo. I may still make one someday. However my initial project is going to be toy sized not life size. At least I have an idea of how to make a life size one. More on that if I get to the life-size project.
The latest trigger for this project was when I went to the Folk Art Museum while I was in California. The gift shop had a handmade toy sheep. It was fairly expensive, as most museum gift shop are. I really had to talk myself out of the purchase. The only way I could was to say, "I could make that." Well, I am home now, and I really want to have a sheep. So here I go, getting started on the project.
I don't have any photos for you yet, but I have started researching the project. Perhaps you wonder why I need research. I guess it goes to how little I really know about sheep. I know it has four legs, some type of ears, a little short, stubby tail. That is about all I know about what sheep look like. What shape are the ears? What do its hooves look like? And as I found out, the short tail is unnatural. A sheep's tails are docked. I just had always assumed that the short tail grew that way. I learn something from every new project.
What I really wanted to know has been somewhat hard to find. What I wanted was a height to length ration. After searching through some web sites of sheep information I have concluded that most people raising sheep care more about the weight of the animal rather that caring about how tall and long it is. Also, there are many different brands of sheep that have different statures so the question might have been rather meaningless in the way it was framed. I did learn a good bit about sheep along the way. I finally turned to sheep anatomy, which gave me a basic idea of what the sheep body looks like.
From there, I started looking at what people have put on the internet regarding lambs they have crafted. So far, most of what I have seen has been cutesy lambs that look like Lambchop (you must be this old to remember that puppet). So far, I have not found a craft pattern for the lawn sheep or even a picture of one. I am not trying to copy someone else's work, but ideas on what materials they used might be helpful. However, it looks like I am going to be completely winging it on this project. What I have found on the internet so far runs more towards toys for infants.
I may have developed a pattern for the sheep body by the next blog post, but that may be wishful thinking. For my next blog post, I will show some photos of another project I have been working on behind the scenes. I hope to have some type of photo of the lamb project after that.
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